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ABSTRACT Anxiety has been related to decreased physical exploration, but past findings on the interaction between anxiety and exploration during decision making were inconclusive. Here we

examined how latent factors of trait anxiety relate to different exploration strategies when facing volatility-induced uncertainty. Across two studies (total _N_ = 985), we demonstrated that

people used a hybrid of directed, random and undirected exploration strategies, which were respectively sensitive to relative uncertainty, total uncertainty and value difference. Trait

somatic anxiety, that is, the propensity to experience physical symptoms of anxiety, was inversely correlated with directed exploration and undirected exploration, manifesting as a lesser

likelihood for choosing the uncertain option and reducing choice stochasticity regardless of uncertainty. Somatic anxiety is also associated with underestimation of relative uncertainty.

Together, these results reveal the selective role of trait somatic anxiety in modulating both uncertainty-driven and value-driven exploration strategies. Access through your institution Buy

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BEHAVIORAL TRADE-OFF BETWEEN VALUE AND UNCERTAINTY UNDERLIES EXPLORATORY DECISIONS IN NORMATIVE ANXIETY Article 01 November 2021 DIRECTED EXPLORATION IS REDUCED BY AN AVERSIVE INTEROCEPTIVE

STATE INDUCTION IN HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS BUT NOT IN THOSE WITH AFFECTIVE DISORDERS Article Open access 05 April 2025 NEURAL PROCESSES IN ANTECEDENT ANXIETY MODULATE RISK-TAKING BEHAVIOR

Article Open access 29 January 2021 DATA AVAILABILITY All de-identified data are publicly available at the Open Science Framework website: https://osf.io/y6urc/. CODE AVAILABILITY The code

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Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank T. Rusch for help with data analysis, and members of the Phelps Lab and Gershman Lab for helpful discussions. This work was supported by the

National Institute on Drug Abuse (Grant No. R01 DA042855 to E.A.P.). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the

manuscript. AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA Haoxue Fan, Samuel J. Gershman & Elizabeth A. Phelps * Center

for Brain Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA Samuel J. Gershman & Elizabeth A. Phelps * Center for Brains, Minds and Machines, Cambridge, MA, USA Samuel J. Gershman Authors

* Haoxue Fan View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Samuel J. Gershman View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed 

Google Scholar * Elizabeth A. Phelps View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS H.F., S.J.G. and E.A.P. developed the study concept

and designed the study. H.F. collected data and performed data analysis. H.F. interpreted the data under the supervision of S.J.G. and E.A.P. All authors wrote the manuscript and approved

its final version for submission. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Elizabeth A. Phelps. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing interests. PEER REVIEW

PEER REVIEW INFORMATION _Nature Human Behaviour_ thanks Christoph Korn and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are

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E.A. Trait somatic anxiety is associated with reduced directed exploration and underestimation of uncertainty. _Nat Hum Behav_ 7, 102–113 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01455-y

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